The Top 6 Exploration Stories of 2012

In the spirit of the recent spate of “what to look for in 2012” lists – those all-important drivers of January magazine issues – I’ve assembled six exploration/astrobiology-related items that should loom large in the coming year.

1. The Shifting Geopolitics of Manned Spaceflight

The American manned space program is one of the most cited examples of the country’s technical prowess and can-do spirit, a top-line-of-the-resume achievement whose anniversary is remembered fondly and proudly every year. The sad part is how many anniversaries have come and gone without an equally impressive accomplishment in manned space flight. It’s a little alarming to realize that, in many ways, the US manned space flight program peaked more than 40 years ago, declining to the point of riding coach on a Russian rocket – whose space program we supposedly vanquished all those decades ago – to low Earth orbit. It’s the interplanetary equivalent of Mark Zuckerberg bumming a ride to an internet café aboard the Winklevoss twins' rowboat.

America’s manned spaceflight holding pattern has been accompanied by the rise of China’s space program – a microcosm of the Rome-syndrome meta discussion preoccupying the American literati. This trend looks to continue in 2012 as NASA awaits a clear directive and China continues its methodical, if unrushed, human spaceflight program. In late December, China unveiled its latest five-year plan for space activities, which includes orbital laboratories and progress toward its goal of placing taikonauts on the moon by 2020. Manned spaceflight has always been inextricably linked to national pride and a perceived prestige on the global stage, and it will be interesting to see how significant the role of space exploration is in this shifting balance of power.

Image: Alvin the submarine grabs a specimen. (Abigail Green)

2. Mars Science Laboratory and Its Journey to Mars

The Golden Age of the robotic exploration of Mars will continue when the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) touches down this August. The Mars community has been spoiled over the last decade with the overwhelmingly successful Mars Odyssey, Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Phoenix Lander. The extensive missions and troves of data are a testament to the impressive capabilities of NASA’s robotic exploration teams and an encouraging counterweight to the foundering manned program.

Of course, past successes won’t mean a whole lot in the “what have you done for me lately” sphere of public opinion if the $2.5 billion MSL fails to deliver. And the bar is higher than ever, since previous missions have already proven the past presence of water and sketched geochemical vignettes of the planet’s history. Much of MSL’s outcome hinges on its landing site: Gale Crater, which possesses clay and sulfate minerals that seem to suggest an aqueous past. Look for MSL to trace the history of water around Gale Crater through mineralogy and, if we’re being optimistic, dig up some organic molecules. That is, assuming the Sky Crane works.

3. The Subglacial Lakes of Antarctica

Mars has seen a lot of action over the last decade, but other destinations in the Solar System may be even more attractive sites for astrobiological exploration. Astrobiologists are particularly enamored with Europa, Jupiter’s ice-covered moon that probably harbors a liquid water ocean. A robotic mission is still years away, but when funding realities arise, analog sites offer consolation, as well as important testing opportunities for future spacecraft.

Over the past several years, a number of international teams have been working on drilling projects into ice-covered lakes in Antarctica. A team of Russian scientists and engineers finally reached the water of Lake Vostok after two decades of drilling, but other groups are pushing toward different lakes. The British are after Lake Ellsworth (with a snazzy hot-water drilling technology), while the Americans are focusing on Lake Whillans. Like any state-linked effort with a hint of competition, there is controversy, as many scientists believe the Russians have already contaminated Lake Vostok by pouring tons of kerosene down the hole to keep it from freezing shut.

These projects are appropriate practice runs for Europa, but they are also scientifically fascinating in their own right. The subglacial lakes have been sealed off from the surface for hundreds of thousands or millions of years, providing a unique and isolated environment, a natural laboratory for studying evolution and adaptation to extreme conditions.

Image: Lake Vostok’s location in Antarctica. (Wikipedia/NASA)

4. Alvin Returns

Ever since 1964, many of the most transformative deep sea scientific findings have been brought to you by Alvin, the lovable 6-foot titanium sphere that carried scientists miles beneath the surface of the ocean. Alvin found the Titanic in the North Atlantic, hydrothermal vents near the Galapagos, and an unexploded hydrogen bomb that plunged into the ocean after a midair accident near Spain. Perhaps the best story Alvin will tell its grandkids is the time a swordfish impaled its foam outer layer and was subsequently served on dinner plates that evening.

But 4+ decades of deep sea research takes its toll, and even though Alvin was enabling world-class science as recently as 2010, it was high time for an upgrade. Over the last 14 months, engineers and Alvin pilots have been hard at work in a warehouse in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. They’ve installed new buoyancy foam, better camera systems, and an entirely new titanium sphere with more room and larger windows.

Although the new diving depth of 6500 meters will only be possible after a second round of upgrades, the oceanographic community is eager to get its workhorse back, and requests for research time with the new and improved Alvin are pouring in.

Image: A cutaway diagram of Alvin. (NOAA)

5. Synthetic Life

Ok, so a synthetic microbe may not fall strictly in the realm of exploration, but it is one of the holy grails of astrobiology – one that would change how we understand life’s origins and inform our search for life beyond Earth.

In 2010, Craig Venter and his coterie of scientists announced that they created the first “synthetic bacterial cell.” After the flashbulbs faded, it became clear that, as exciting as the discovery was, it was a far cry from the more fundamental quest to create life from scratch. For one thing, the Venter team chemically assembled DNA bases of a naturally occurring genome. For another, the recipient organism was a well-characterized, preexisting organism; ultimately, the experiment was a genome transplant.

Generating a viable cell from scratch is an enormous challenge. There are a lot of steps from prebiotic soup to squirmy microbe, but teams around the world are beginning to clear some of the early hurdles. In January, a UC San Diego-Harvard team showed how simple abiotic reactions can generate membrane-like containers – prerequisites that would create a barrier between life-sustaining reactions and the outside world of chaotic chemistry. Several key challenges remain (among them how to create the first self-replicating information-storing molecule) and 2012 will no doubt see continued progress.

Image: Synthetic life created by Craig Venter. (Science/AAAS)

6. Extrasolar Planets

NASA’s Kepler Mission – a quest to identify extrasolar planets in their respective stars’ habitable zone – is changing the way we think about the universe in near real time. Over the last few months, the team has announced another major discovery roughly as often as the recycling is picked up. In September, Kepler-16b became the first planet known to orbit a binary star (a “circumbinary planet” for you Scrabble fans out there). In October and November, additional planets were announced, but they were too hot or too large to earn the “Earth-like” designation.

In December, however, Kepler-22b was unveiled as the first Earth-like planet with the thermal characteristics amenable to liquid water. Two additional Earth-sized objects were announced the next week. (Though, having been enveloped by the red-giant phase of their host star, these planets are probably just charred remains.)

Just in case you thought the mission has already run its course, there’s a little tab on the Kepler mission’s website that keeps score of the mission’s progress. As of now, 61 planets have been confirmed, while 2,326 are in taxonomical limbo as “candidate planets.” Of course, given the frenetic pace of the mission, both of those numbers will probably change by the time I finish this sentence.

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Those are the key stories I’m looking forward to this year; did I miss anything big? What else is going to be inspiring people, advancing science, and racking up the YouTube hits over the next 11 months?